It’s a Sale!
THE OTHER SISTER EBOOK is just $4.99 until, but only until Jan. 21! Start your new year with some new suspense!
Archive for Zettel
How Did it Start?
Nothing in this world happens in a vaccum. Everything is related, especially when it comes to the desire for resources, and the desire to explore. The events in “An Exchange of Two Flowers,” are actually tied up in the need, and the desire for three plant-based resources. In the novella, I’m focused on two men — Lin Zexu, and Charles Elliot and two plants – tea and opium. But there was a third plant tied into the story. Cotton.
The British had planned to be able to pay for the tea they wanted from China with a trade in cotton, which they’d get from what was becoming their colony of India. But the Americans, with clipper ships and, yes, slave labor, could get American grown cotton to the English mills cheaper, and faster than the British could get it home from India. So, there was not enough profit to buy the tea in the quantities that the English public demanded.
This left the English in a quandry. And they were determined to solve it.
Enter the opium poppy…and so our story begins…
MORE RESOURCES:
Here’s an excellent overview of the history of what the English called “the China Trade” from MIT.
Did it Really…?
Did somebody really try to kill George II when he was still Prince of Wales?
George II gets overlooked a lot as a do-nothing king, but when he was a prince, he and Princess Caroline were both very popular. With most people. Most of the time. There was this once though…
HISTORICAL SPOILER ALERT!!!!
“Towards the end of September 1716 he made a progress from Hampton Court to Portsmouth, distributing largess copiously all the way, held a review of the troops and inspected the ships at Portsmouth, and was everywhere received with the utmost enthusiasm. He increased his popularity by his energy in superintending the suppression of a fire at Spring Gardens on 3 December, to which he walked from St. James’s Palace in the early morning. He displayed great coolness a few days later at Drury Lane Theatre, when an assassin attempted to enter his box with a loaded pistol, and was only secured after taking the life of the guard in attendance.”
— Dr. Marjorie Bloy, “A Web of English History” quoting James McMullen Rugg, 1889 —
Authors Read Their Mean Reviews
Sarah Zettel and her fellow Open Road authors read from the best of their worst reviews!
